Job Hunt (31 page)

Raf yelled from across the street as Jack peeled away from the curb, expletives he couldn’t make out over the sounds of the engine and the rush of the wind in his hair. He’d lay good odds that a police patrol would spot him riding without a helmet, so even if Raf didn’t manage to get his tank started and keep up with him, he’d have company soon enough.

The Jag had a head start, but when it came to maneuvering through traffic, Jack had the advantage over the heavy saloon with its blingy twenty-inch rims. He wove around cars, dodged pedestrians and bollards all the while hoping for the sound of sirens. The purr of the engine made his body thrum and his mind buzz. He squinted into the wind, kept the black car in sight, and made damn sure the driver was aware he was being followed.

Somewhere behind him, Raf Gallant was tearing his hair out trying to catch up, and very soon Lisa would be gunning for his balls. Chasing after the Jag
was
unnecessarily dramatic when he could have run the license plate and followed the car’s journey on the traffic cams. But Jack had good instincts, and he’d been taught to trust them.

Those instincts led him not into the warren of warehouses and workshops along the river, but right into the heart of the City where none of them would have even thought to look. Jack knew the City of London well enough to follow along despite abrupt turns, sudden shortcuts, and dives down unmarked alleyways. When the Jag sped up even more, squealing around corners at a rate that threatened the occupants with seasickness, Jack could guess what the driver was planning.

He tried to get close enough, but the solid metal gate was faster, already closing as the Jaguar rounded the corner. The driver slipped between the two halves of the gate like a minnow swimming through the teeth of a shark, and Jack couldn’t help but admire the man’s timing. Faced with a wall of solid, brushed metal he hit the brakes and swung the bike sideways in a cloud of tire smoke, prepared when the machine tried to slide out from under him.

The police caught up with him then. Two patrol cars at first, followed by an unmarked car, and then Rafael pulled in right behind, blocking the mouth of the alley and the access to the underground parking lot. The uniforms got to him while he parked the bike. They didn’t try to arrest him on the spot, so Jack saw no need to waste time with introductions.

“Tablet,” he requested from the uniformed officer closest to him.

“What?”

“Tablet, Kindle, laptop… just get me a fucking computer!” His voice was a snarl, but Jack didn’t care. He was close; he wasn’t losing the trail now just because the local law couldn’t follow his train of thought.

“There’s no open Wi-Fi in this area,” a plaintive voice said beside him, and Jack grabbed the offered laptop and flipped the lid up.

“Talk to me after we’re done here,” Jack muttered under his breath as the screen came to life. “I’ll show you how to hot-spot your phone.”

“My password is—”

“Thank you. Don’t need that.” Hell, he was far ahead of passwords, sliding neatly into a database he shouldn’t have known about let alone have access to.

Jack hit pay dirt on the second try. The number plates he’d memorized belonged to the Jag, which was registered to one Goran Mitrovic, property developer.

Goran wouldn’t let us….

Here was the reason Jack Horwood didn’t believe in coincidences. He backed out of the database, cleared his footprints, and handed the laptop back to the officer with a nod of thanks after shutting it down.

He needed his own gear for what came next.

He needed it now.

Lucky for his temper, Raf Gallant was already headed his way, under a full head of steam.

“What the fuck, Horwood!” He threw the tablet at Jack and got right in his face. “Are you out of your fucking mind? What was that shit?”

Raf in a temper was a sight to behold. Shame he didn’t have time to enjoy the show. “Goran Mitrovic,” he said, booting up his tablet.

“What?” Raf stopped midtirade.

“The pimp. His name is Goran Mitrovic.”

“You were chasing the pimp.”

“No. I was racing around the City on a borrowed bike to get my adrenaline fix,” Jack snapped, hiding an ounce of guilt for not going by the book under a mountain of irritation.

“And here I thought you were begging for attention,” the man beside Rafael chimed in.

“I never beg.” Jack frowned at the slim stranger he hadn’t met before. “And who the fuck are you?”

“Skylar Payne.”

Under normal circumstances Jack would have taken note of the man’s trim build and stunning, exotic looks. He would have registered the hint of purple liner, stylish hair, and carefully chosen outfit—all black, but the textures so artfully mixed that there was a distinct illusion of color. Then, as soon as he’d seen the man move, he would have dismissed the outside as irrelevant and focused on the predator that resided within. Circumstances were not normal, though, and Jack glared instead of treading softly.

“You’re not invited.”

“That’s cold, man.”

“Stop baiting him, moron,” Raf cautioned, diverting his ire to a more responsive target. “He’ll rip your head off.”

“And play football with it, perchance? I always want—”

“This isn’t a pissing contest! Shut the fuck up, and let me work!” Jack sank down cross-legged, right there in the dirt in front of the metal gate. The road held some of the lunchtime sun, and if he craned his neck all the way back he could see a small strip of sky between the towering office blocks around him. He settled the tablet across his knees and promised more candles for a decent Wi-Fi signal so he could find out everything there was to know about Goran Mitrovic, starting with the names of anyone who had the code to the metal gates and the exit the Jag had taken from the underground garage complex.

He was peripherally aware of Raf directing the uniformed officers and of Skylar Payne keeping a clear space around him, wide enough so nobody could even guess at what he was doing. The two worked seamlessly together, and Jack filed that away for thinking about later. Right now, he was on the hunt.

C
HAPTER
TWENTY
P
HALANX

D
INNER
WAS
at Scotland Yard that night. The amount of food on offer was almost as extensive as the first time Jack had sat in the large conference room, but this time Walshaw wasn’t there to try Jack’s patience. Clive Baxter sat beside Lisa, pale and with his left arm in a sling to immobilize his shoulder but determined to be part of the action. Raf had brought Skylar Payne, who looked even more exotic than Jack remembered him from earlier in the day, and Aidan Conrad had joined Gareth and Jack on the brief ride from Nancarrow Mining’s offices in the Strand.

“Don’t make us wait,” Aidan admonished almost as soon as he sat down. “I’m due in court first thing tomorrow morning, and I need my beauty sleep.”

Jack crammed the last of the pizza into his mouth and booted up his tablet. “The pimp’s name is Goran Mitrovic,” he began. “Born in Serbia, March 2, 1964. Arrived in London October 17, 1998. Holds a British passport since 2009. He owns Metro Properties, a company that buys and renovates industrial spaces and neglected residential properties before renting them out or selling them on. Profitable since inception and—on the face of it—totally legit.”

Jack flipped screens and continued: “I’ve mailed you all the list of properties he’s turned over in the last ten years, copies of the accounts he’s filed with Companies House, and all banking activity on his business and main private account for the last five years.”

“You did that in
one
afternoon?”

Jack ignored the incredulous looks from Raf and Aidan. “Getting at credit cards and phone records takes longer, so yell if you feel you need them,” he continued. “I’ve started going through the list of properties looking for the most likely places to use as a brothel. With that mixed a portfolio, there are bound to be a number of options to run down. We must find the other boys and get them out before we can shut him down. Once that’s done I’ll go after the buyers.”

“Can I just point out that we have no warrant for any of this activity,” Lisa bit out. “If we arrest Mitrovic, we’ll never make it stick.”

Unless they caught him red-handed, of course.

Jack didn’t care if the data he provided was admissible in court or not. He’d spoken nothing but the truth when he’d told Gareth that the main motivation for his crusades was to get men like Mitrovic off the streets. Permanently. If the law needed breaking to achieve that, then Jack would gladly break the law.

“We don’t need Jack’s evidence,” Aidan interjected, almost as if he’d read Jack’s mind. “We have witnesses.”

“No we don’t. Right now Nico and Daniel are missing or not cooperating,” Lisa argued right back.

“You’re wrong on both counts, there, Dr. Tyrrell,” Skylar cut in. When he wasn’t snarking he had a pleasant voice, soft and melodious. “Daniel and Nico are in a safe place, and they
are
cooperating. Not with as much enthusiasm as you’d like to see, but given what they’ve been through, I don’t think we have any right to push them. Not if we want them to come out of this mess even halfway sane.”

Jack hadn’t realized he had an ally. He shot Skylar a look; one that Skylar returned with a small nod and a curl of lip. Skylar Payne hadn’t been part of the protection detail Raf had put together when Jack needed a safe place for the boys, but it seemed he was helping out when Jack wasn’t spending all his free time at the safe house.

“They don’t trust the system,” Clive suggested.

“You don’t trust the system either.” Jack pushed a box of Nurofen and a bottle of water across the table when he saw Clive shift restlessly in his chair, unable to get comfortable.

“Do you have any leads on your leak?” Gareth queried. “A list of likely suspects?”

“I have a list of all personnel directly involved in both cases,” Lisa said, and some of the tension left her frame. She no longer looked as if she was on the warpath. More like dejection and worry were sapping her composure. “It’s a long list. I should report it to internal affairs and let them take over, but….”

“Maybe we can help you out with that once Mitrovic is dealt with,” Gareth suggested, and Jack raised his head in time to see Aidan give a decisive nod.

What the fuck were those two on?
Granted, he wanted the backstabbing bastard caught too, but in his experience Met officers had a tendency to scoff at suggestions of outside help. Jack had given up offering quite a while ago. It occurred to him that he’d been facing Walshaw… and that he and Baxter worked together just fine most days.

“Do you really think you can trace all the buyers?” Clive asked in a low tone that carried no further than Jack’s ears.

“You bet. I’m not planning to let a single one of those perverts get away. All it takes is time.”

“And effort.”

“Work’s never bothered me.”

“No. Only red tape.”

“Let’s get this organized, then,” Raf suggested before the meeting could devolve into individual conversations. “Do we split the list of properties, or do you want to narrow them down? Anyone got a hunch?”

“I followed the Jag on the traffic cams after he got away from me, and he went north towards Shoreditch.”

“His offices.”

“Yes, but also about a dozen properties. Some that he’s had since he started the business. One is a dining club. It could be a blind—”

“Or he’s running home to check on his assets,” Aidan grunted.

“Either way, let’s check it out. Can you flag those for me?”

Jack nodded, and if he wondered at the raft of helping hands that suddenly surrounded him, he kept that to himself.

“J
ACK
? C
AN
you spare me a few minutes?”

Jack had been a quarter of the way through the list of properties Mitrovic’s company had developed over the years when he’d answered his phone without checking the caller ID. He’d expected Raf on the other end. Or maybe Clive. Alexandra Marston’s name hadn’t even made it onto the list. “Sure. What do you need?”

What she needed was to see him. Ideally in her office. Jack didn’t mind a stretch and a caffeine fix, and he made his way across to Alex Marston’s workspace without demur. This time around, the large office felt peaceful. One of the hibiscus trees had opened its flowers, and even from as far away as the door the big blooms looked as soft as bloodred velvet. They matched the furniture as perfectly as the red ribbons on Alex Marston’s pale blouse.

“Have you studied poisons?” Jack asked as he settled into the armchair Alex indicated.

“What makes you ask that?”

Jack sighed. At that rate, they’d never get a conversation going. He supposed that Alex couldn’t help being evasive any more than he could. “You’ve surrounded yourself with some very potent ones.” He waved at the greenery gracing the office.

“It’s interesting that
poison
is the first place your mind goes to.” Alex set a tea service on the low table between them and poured. “Most people see beautiful flowers.”

“Most people haven’t worked where we have.” Jack took the tea she offered and leaned back into his chair. “But I’m sure you didn’t ask me over to discuss botany. Or personal history.”

“You are correct. I would like to ask for your help.”

“With?”

“Gary Downs.”

Jack set his cup down and considered. “He’s being held for questioning about the stabbing of a police officer. But you know that.”

“Yes. He’s uncooperative, and Lisa’s in a hurry, so she asked for my help.”

Alexandra Marston didn’t evade Jack’s searching gaze this time. Her head was tipped a little to one side in invitation, and Jack might have found the look enticing if he had believed it genuine. He found he liked the woman, hardassery and evasion and all, as much as he’d ever liked a mental challenge. “What do you need from me?”

“Dirt.”

“Well, that’s an unexpectedly precise request,” Jack smirked. “There’s plenty of it on his rap sheet.”